THIS ARTICLE ORIGINALLY RAN IN THE ART OF STORYTELLING MAGAZINE ISSUE #1.

So where in Jersey did you grow up?
Monmouth County, Eatontown.

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How did you get involved in the hardcore scene?
Like a lot of kids who get into hardcore, especially kids from down the Jersey Shore at that time, I found music through skating. Prior to high school, I mainly learned about hardcore from skate magazines. I’d read the “Notes” section of Thrasher, which gave the run down on bands. I hung out with this kid George and he’d give me his old Thrashers. I bought or copied tapes when I could. Some years later I got into high school and some of the kids from the adjacent towns were part of the school. That’s where I met Josh Grabelle who later started Trustkill Records. Josh was the one who knew everyone in the area. Through him I met a lot of people who were into hardcore and about upcoming shows. I also met a fellow named Rich Flanagan, who I went to my first show with freshman year. A year later I met Carl Severson who later started Ferret Records. Carl was basically an Army kid from Fort Monmouth and I met him the first day of sophomore year of high school. I was wearing a Gorilla Biscuits shirt and he leaned over and was like ”DUDE! The Gorilla Biscuits.” And that was how it all started.

“Back then I just wanted to absorb everything skateboarding related. In that Dogtown documentary, Henry Rollins explained how he did the same thing. He waited for Skateboarder Magazine every month. You would get to see those pictures and you got snapshots of what was going on.”

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That’s crazy that two relatively big hardcore labels, Trustkill and Ferret, came from the same area of Jersey and the owners were really good friends.
Yeah, and both Carl and Josh have brilliant business minds and an eye for talent. I think that’s why some labels over the years have died out and Carl and Josh are still around. They’re not doing this as a hobby, running this out of their bedrooms anymore. They take it very seriously.

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What year did you link up with those guys? I met Josh in like ‘88 or ‘89. I met Carl a year later.

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Growing up in Monmouth County, did you ever skate the Eatontown Roller Rink?
Eatontown Roller Rink, baby! It was amazing. For those who don’t know, it was a roller rink that they converted into a skate park one night a week. If you brought a ramp you would get in for free. I remember I had this friend Brian. I don’t know what his deal was. He was kind of an interesting cat. He was always getting into trouble. I remember Brian went to one of those alternative high schools. His parents were very laid back and they basically let him build a skate park in front of their house. He had bank, he had launch ramp, sliders, a box, a wall ride ramp in his garage. Every Sunday night he would hop in his dad’s truck and head out to Eatontown with one of his ramps, so we rarely had to pay to get in to the rink. The place was awesome. There were no skateparks in the area back then so the rink was a really big deal. I remember Mike Vallely would sometimes show up, doing method airs, touching the ceiling with his hand. You used to get pros out there every once in a while and you’d just want to watch and be inspired. I have such great memories of skating there. You had the smooth floor and you could bring your tapes and the DJ would play them. There were a hundred or so of other kids skating, so you always made sure you were on point. On top of that you used to get to meet new people. And you learned new tricks and got to skate different types of ramps and such. One night the Asbury Park Press showed up. I was trying kickflip-to-melan grabs off the launch ramp all night and I got my picture in the paper. Lot of great memories skating there.

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What ever happened to that place? [The roof to the longtime abandoned building collapsed on Feb. 19, 2009 and was demolished soon after.]
Not sure. I stopped going in the early 90s. This guy Tin Man we knew died at the rink. He had a heart condition and had a convulsion right on the floor. He died in front of everybody. That was a shame. They actually buried him with his board. Carl and I were at the funeral.

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So was there a point where skating died and the music picked up?
Yeah, in the early 90s when skating entered its dark period. The surf-influenced style of skating that initially attracted me evolved into the super technical, style-doesn’t-matter era. I tried to stick through it for a while but I bailed as I got more consumed by music. But the connection between skating and music was always there. Thrasher Magazine helped me find out about other aspects of skating culture like music. Man, I would study those old issues so intently. Back then I just wanted to absorb everything skateboarding related. In that Dogtown documentary, Henry Rollins explained how he did the same thing. He waited for Skateboarder Magazine every month. You would get to see those pictures and you got snapshots of what was going on. It wasn’t just the skating but the music as well. I had to approach it a bit differently though. I was raised in a relatively strict Christian home and I was the baby of five kids, so at 13 I was listening to Bad Brains and Metallica and The Dead Kennedys at night in my room with my headphones on so that my parents couldn’t hear. For me it was a matter of wanting to be different from my siblings and the kids around me who were still into playing football. I looked to music as a way to tap into that same type of raw energy that I found in skateboarding.

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Do you remember the first show you saw?
I do. I saw a band called Vision In Long Branch, NJ. The show was at a hole in the wall place down the shore called Murphy’s Law. It was Vision, Release, Cryptic Cookies and No Future. Once I went to that first show and experienced the hardcore scene for real, everything just clicked. I found the other part of me. I had found skateboarding, which was a big part of my life, and then I found hardcore – above and beyond just having the records. I really got to see what a DIY scene looked like.

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The hardcore scene was similar to skateboarding. If you went somewhere and saw someone that skateboarded it was like we were instant friends.
Oh, hell yeah, because it was so underground still. It was like in the movie Fight Club. Ed Norton goes into a restaurant and he looks up and the guy nods at him. He knows who he is and they are part of the same underground scene. Carl and I are a perfect example. Here we are, complete strangers. It was his first day at my school and he’s not sitting there for more than two minutes and it’s like dude, we’re best friends because of the shirt I’m wearing. We were hanging out after school, copying each other’s tapes, going to shows. It’s the same with skateboarding. Some dude would have a pair of shoes on. It didn’t even have to be the type of shoes he was wearing, it could be some Nike shoes. If they were all ripped up with an ollie hole and some duck tape, you knew you were cut from the same cloth, and you were automatically buds now.

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Yeah. It’s different now?
Well, it’s so mainstream now its hard to tell. It is good and bad at the same time. I definitely feel blessed to have come into the hardcore scene when I did. I mean there are bands that came out in the late 80s that are legendary now, especially the bigger straight edge bands. When straight edge really took off with the whole Revelation Records boom, that was just a hell of a time to come in. The scene was fresh and there was so much energy, and it wasn’t mainstream at all. It was very raw and underground and something you could call your own in the midst of all the mainstream trends in high school.

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Going mainstream took away the small stuff that really made it something.
For the consumer these days, it’s a double edged sword. It is so much easier to get music these days. Even for the well known bands. You don’t even have to buy anything, you just go to one of these sites and download it. Twenty years ago it was a lot different. I remember having to get on a bus and go a couple of towns over to go to store called Vintage Vinyl in Ocean Township, NJ. I had to do all that just to be able to see what new records had come in. That was exciting, man. The store was totally out of the way for a kid not old enough to drive. From start to finish it was like two-and-a-half hours for me to go there, look around, and come back. I was riding the frigging bus and when I got there they sometimes didn’t even have anything new but that experience was a big part of it. You just gravitated to that energy. You never knew what you were going to find or who you were going to run into. You would see flyers for upcoming shows and couldn’t wait to tell your friends. It was real exciting. It’s a bummer for kids growing up now because they’re not experiencing that. They’re never going to know the excitement of waiting for a record to come out and getting to the store, finally holding it in your hands, spending hours looking at it after you get it. Its just a mouse click now, before the record even is released.

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Not holding a tangible item is a weird concept. I remember reading everything before even listening to the record. The liner notes were like a hidden treasure. You got to see the bands that they thanked and you could use that as a blueprint to find more bands that you would probably like.
I bought so many records based on those thanks lists. You also bring up a really good point. The iPod play list totally replaced the concept of the album. Not just the tangibility, but the song order. Song ordering is so important when putting together an album. It’s how you tell the story. It’s like a book. I just recorded the last Burnt by the Sun record and song order was a big discussion for us. Then of course you have the issue of people downloading the whole album for free instead of buying it. So you have to look for other ways to make people want to buy the music, like including a DVD or silk-screened patches or anything that taps into the power of the music that can’t be downloaded.

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How did Endeavor start to gain momentum?
When we got around to doing a tour. Endeavor had done some demos followed by a 7 inch. That Endeavor 7 inch was actually Carl’s first release on Ferret Records. Momentum didn’t start to pick up until the first 7 inch and we started playing out on a regular basis. When we started touring in the summers and we had a 12 inch out, that is when things picked up for us.

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How did you end up being the vocalist?
Well, I started the band as the vocalist, so it was set since day one. I knew from the day I went to my first show that I needed to sing in a band and I needed to be proactive in getting in a band or starting one. I knew what kind of vocals I would want to do and what I wanted to sing about. I had stacks of old lyrics I wrote from the time I was 14 years old. You may remember back in the day some hardcore records would come with instrumental songs. My dad’s stereo in the den had a plug-in microphone, so I would sing my lyrics over the instrumentals and hear myself through the speakers. I had sang in a couple of project bands that didn’t go anywhere, and Endeavor was the first one that stuck.

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Was there any significance to the name Endeavor?
Actually we initially were called In the Name of God. It wasn’t a religious band but more of a poke at religion. I was 16 and was going through my “I’m really angry at God phase.” That didn’t really gel well with the other guys so we made the name change. Endeavor was the first name we all liked. It sounded like a hardcore band, so we used that. The first show that we did was at a birthday party. It was this girl we knew that had pretty laid back parents. I was nervous as hell. [Laughs] I haven’t thought about that party in years. After that we did some shows here and there through high school and then the summer after I graduated in ‘93 is when Josh started putting on really good shows in his basement. I mean REALLY GOOD shows – Unbroken, Lifetime, Snapcase, Iconoclast, Strife, Earth Crisis, Chorus of Disapproval. So many other bands. I have no idea how he started doing that but that was an amazing summer. Going to his house earlier that day, chillin’ with all the bands, skating around. And of course Josh would put us on some of the shows. This was the summer of ‘93 into ‘94. He must have done like eight or nine shows that year. His parents were super laid back. They were successful professionals but they were cool with all these strange kids hanging out in their house. Carl’s parents, too. Endeavor did band practices in their basement for a while, and Carl’s mom would tell us how much we sucked. [laughs] But they were cool.

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What was the New Brunswick scene like back then?
New Brunswick was a good scene. New Jersey was really divided up. There was South Jersey around the Cherry Hill area. A club called G Willicers was down there and that scene was pretty tied in with Philly. Then you had the whole Jersey Shore scene and that’s where I went to a lot of shows. New Brunswick included a lot of the same bands to a certain degree. In Brunswick, you also had some of the more punk bands like Bouncing Souls. And then there was the Northern Jersey scene that had the tougher bands, and was considered to be an offshoot of the New York City scene. And then you had Middlesex County College, which to a large degree brought all the scenes together. But Brunswick itself was cool.

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What made you come to New Brunswick?
I moved to New Brunswick in ‘94. Carl went off to school in Minnesota for a year but then transferred back to Rutgers so we were like cool, let’s move to New Brunswick, and we rented a house. Josh went up to Syracuse, which had a huge hardcore scene back then, but we still kept tight. While he was up there he started Trustkill Records, which was initially a fan ‘zine. But New Brunswick had so much going on. Aside from the local scene of basement shows, the Melody Bar, and the Court Tavern, you had Middlesex County College, which was 10 minutes away. How many shows did we go to there?

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How the hell did a community college become such an important part of the Hardcore scene?
It all came down to this girl Tracy who was the head of the show committee at the school and she was dating Tim McMahon from Mouthpiece. She put together these amazing, really diverse shows. You would see a band like Westin playing with Sheer Terror or Integrity or something. Before “fests” became the norm, Middlesex shows were the closest thing to a fest you could get. 10 bands from all across the country in the same show. I can’t remember the last time they had a show at Middlesex. A bunch of times I remember things getting out of hand back then. The infamous yogurt-throwing took place there when Earth Crisis played. They were seen as being pushy with their beliefs about animal rights and there were some kids from Phili that threw yogurt at them while they played. The yogurt part was the peaceful part. This one cat we knew jumped on the stage with a fur coat and things got out of hand and stupid. I also remember the power got pulled during Earth Crisis’ set but they kept playing, just the drums and most of the crowd singing along. That show I remember as striking me as real powerful. Karl and Earth Crisis earned a lot of respect that day, in my book. Agree with it or not, it was a movement within hardcore that was developing.

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Yeah, when I think of hardcore, I think of a movement and I don’t see that these days.
I know what you’re saying and I think it’s a hard call. I don’t see it either but then again I am not a 16-year-old kid in the year 2009 hanging out with friends after school doing whatever kids 16-year-olds now do. Judging by the shows that I have been to recently, meaning the last couple of years, and seeing how many kids still come out, I don’t think a whole lot has changed. I think they just do it differently than we did. They’re downloading music and they’re going to Hot Topic to get their t-shirts, but it is still an alternative culture.

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Haha, Hot Topic. I actually don’t mind Hot Topic that much. I would rather see that than some other stuff but knowing what I know now about marketing and stuff they literally took what wasn’t popular and totally turned that into a main stream product.
Yeah, there are pluses and minuses to the Hot Topic phenomenon. In one sense, people have easier access to alternative culture. As mainstream as it seems to us, most people will go nowhere near that store. But yeah, I feel you. It’s the tradeoff. The more access you have, the more that energy seems to get diluted. It’s accessible in a way that is on the edge but not too much on the edge. But if you have someone that goes into Hot Topic and if they’re really trying to find themselves and they are attracted to that energy in the same way that you and I were, then they are going to go beyond what they are selling at Hot Topic. They are gonna immerse themselves in it and go above and beyond going to the mall to get their fix. I bought my first Bad Brains tape at a place called Record Town at the Monmouth Mall. It grew from there.

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What happened after Endeavor?
As Endeavor was winding down, I started Nora with Carl and Chris Ross from Ensign. I played guitar in that band for the first few records. Like Endeavor, Nora signed to Trustkill Records. I also played guitar with a New Brunswick band called Try.Fail.Try for a while. The singer from that band now does a podcast called Issue Oriented, which is awesome. Then around 99, some friends from the shore scene approached me and asked me to check out a new band they were starting. This was Dave Witte from Human Remains and John Adubato from Time’s Up. I checked it out and was blown away, and was stoked that they wanted me to sing. I was into it but wanted to hear more. They were practicing without me and then Dave called me up and asked how come I wasn’t coming to practice, was I still into it. I said, “yeah, of course, man. I just wanted to give you guys some breathing room”. He was like, “we’re ready for you man, come on down, let’s do this”. This is how Burnt by the Sun got started.

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You just finished a new Burnt by the Sun record. How was the process of making the album? (By the time you read this, the new record [“Heart of Darkness”] is in stores)
It was definitely different from any other record I’ve ever worked on. We broke up for a few years and then decided that we should reform and do one last record. We had signed with Relapse for three albums and had done two, so it was an opportunity that we thought we’d regret not fulfilling. With the exception of our drummer Dave (Witte), we all have families and mortgages on our plates, so everything was very different this time around. Dave lives in Virginia and tours with Municipal Waste many months out of the year, so the writing was done over time and distance. We worked on the record very slowly over the course of a few years, on a less-than-part-time basis, emailing riffs and song ideas back and forth, discussing the album concepts and all of that. By the time we got to the studio, we were rarely all in the studio at the same time. Most of us didn’t take any time off work, we’d just show up at night or on the weekends. I have studio equipment at home and I recorded the vocals at home and imported them into the studio’s ProTools rig. Everything worked out great in the end, but the process was different than any other record we’ve done. I am glad we did it. The record is inspired by the Joseph Conrad novella, Heart of Darkness, and deals with the same dark themes of human nature. It was a difficult record to write lyrically, but despite its tone, in a lot of ways it is the most positive and uplifting record I have ever done.

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Any plans for touring?
Nothing big, no. Those days are gone. We will do some support but not much.

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Any last words?
Thanks for this conversation. You know, its funny how when you start reminiscing about certain periods of your life, you remember the head space you were in at the time, and you get attracted to the more pleasant memories and try to hold on to them. A lot of people I know have had really unpleasant childhoods. I’m happy to say that I had a great childhood. I grew up in a home with a family that loved me and, with few exceptions, encouraged me to be the person I wanted to be. We all grow up and choose our own paths, and a lot of the soul searching I’ve done during the years has led me back to my roots in a lot of ways. I’m starting a family of my own now and want my kids to have the same foundation I did. Also, after many years I started skateboarding again this past year. I stopped back in 93 or 94 when skating took a turn for the worst, but last summer something clicked in me and I felt the urge to step on a board again. After about an hour I was hooked again. There’s nothing in the world that gives you that feeling, and sometimes it’s just what I need after a hard day at work. Just get in a few runs and let it all go. I hope my kids can appreciate both skating and music the way I have. If not, I am going to let them be the people they are and love them just the same. They’ll just have to put up with me being the only dad on the street doing slappy grinds out in front of the house.

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